Miami Rescue Mission's days numbered at Broward homeless center

When the Broward Outreach Center stopped filling overnight homeless beds for a week in October, people like Anne Backus, 71, ended up sleeping on the sidewalk outside the Pompano Beach center. The county now wants to change operators of the center. (South Florida Sun Sentinel file)

A South Florida nonprofit with almost a century of working with the homeless is being kicked out of Broward County’s homeless assistance center in Pompano Beach, an operation it has run for more than 15 years.

Broward officials are set to send the Miami Rescue Mission packing just months after the mission abruptly stopped providing overnight beds at the Broward Outreach Center because of a financial dispute with the county. The stoppage lasted about a week and affected 30 beds each at the Pompano center and another the mission runs in Hollywood.

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Commissioners will vote Tuesday on turning over the Pompano operation to the Broward Partnership for the Homeless, which currently runs the county’s Fort Lauderdale homeless center. The Miami Rescue Mission will continue to run the county’s Hollywood center, which is on property owned by the mission.

Commissioners are also set to end the county’s agreement at the Pompano site with St. Laurence Chapel, which has operated a weekday respite center for the homeless next door to the assistance center since 2003. The Broward Partnership will run the two centers as a single operation, which will improve service and make it more efficient, said Mandy Wells, the county’s deputy director of human services.

That’s not how Rom Brummitt, president of the mission, sees it. He said the county never contacted him about the change it is planning. He thinks the decision is directly related to the measure he took in October over stalled contract negotiations with the county that were financially strapping his organization. He wanted a commitment from the county to help pay for the 30 overnight beds the center had been providing. He received an initial six-month contract, which the county now plans to let expire.

“This is the most dastardly thing I have ever encountered,” Brummitt said. “They never ever picked up the phone or said, ‘Ron, can we meet with you?’ ”

Mayor Mark Bogen criticized Brummitt’s earlier decision to stop filling the overnight spaces. Bogen, whose district includes the Pompano center, said he has received complaints for years about the operation of the center and its being kept off-and-on in “deplorable condition.”

“Anybody that would use homeless people as a negotiating tactic, kicking them out, does not have my respect,” Bogen said. “I believe the homeless community will be much better served with the Broward Partnership taking over that facility and running that facility.”

Although the switch would not take place until April, the county would pay the Broward Partnership for two months to prepare to take over. The county also has agreed to pay additional costs until the partnership can put together its own fundraising effort to support its share of the operations at the center.

“They gave them everything they wanted to make sure this switch would take place,” Brummitt said. “It’s funny. They didn’t have money three or four months ago, now they have millions of dollars to throw down. It’s politics.”

The Pompano center has 208 program beds for individuals in substance abuse counseling, health care and job training and placement. It also has 30 overnight beds assigned on a daily basis. The center operated by St. Laurence Chapel has 29 overnight beds available Monday to Friday.